


What If They Remembered Being Gay?

by zeitgeist77



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: AU, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Hotel, Light Angst, Light Smut, M/M, One Shot, fuck pennywise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-20 23:08:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20683463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeitgeist77/pseuds/zeitgeist77
Summary: Reddie in the hotel after Richie comes back from the arcade. An AU/UA where they had more time to talk or remember each other.





	What If They Remembered Being Gay?

Eddie was covered in black sludge, he felt it drying to his skin as he walked briskly towards the hotel everyone was staying in. "Fuck this. Fuck it, I'm out." he muttered as he passed the threshold, seeing Beverly and Ben sitting at the bottom of the stairwell. He pushed past them as they asked what had happened. God he just wanted to leave. This had all been too much. From the moment he set foot in Derry, he felt so different. He had started remembering things as he ventured through the town, but he started to feel like a different person. It was like going to a foreign country, but knowing all the streets. Nothing had changed in this town and he was tired of being confused by remembering it. He was tired of knowing what he knew, he wanted to forget everything again. 

As he trudged up the stairs, he saw Richie's door cracked. He suddenly felt the overwhelming desire to take Richie with him. 'Come live with me' he thought, then 'nevermind we can move out to California. Fuck Myra.' This was another thing he'd felt since he rolled back onto the Derry roads. He hated Myra. He resented how she cared for him. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the comfort, but he remembered immediately why he had despised his mother. He looked at the scar on his arm from where the bone had split the skin and he remembered that Myra and his mother didn't care about who he was or if he felt alright on the inside. They cared about his body solely because that was what they could care for. 

He'd lectured himself over and over. Leave Myra. Keep the friends. Keep Richie. 

And his obsession with Richie made no sense either. He couldn't remember the guy but all he could think about was to stay with him, be with him. Why did Eddie want to be with him? He couldn't remember. And, to some degree, he didn't care. He trusted his younger self more than his present one because his younger self didn't marry his mother, he did. 

"Rich?" Eddie pushed the door open and walked in. Richie was sitting at the edge of his bed, hunched over his lap and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Rich?" Eddie asked again, this time kneeling in front of him. He tilted his head trying to examine Richie's face. He noticed that Richie had some teardrops on the knee of his jeans. "Rich look at me." Eddie said and pushed his hands away from his face. Richie looked at Eddie like he'd been betrayed. Tears brimmed his eyes and thin water streaks were drawn down his cheeks. "What happened?" he asked. 

"Eds, I'm not gonna lie: I can't fucking be here anymore." he said, cold as a stone. 

"What did you see?" Eddie asked, then changed his question. "What did you remember?" he asked. 

Richie looked away for a second, spying through the window at the breeze in the trees. He felt his chest rise and fall and electricity run through his body from where Eddie's hand was touching his leg. And he had no idea how to tell Eddie without ruining his life as he had done for himself. He was going to ruin a marriage, probably a friendship, and all for what? Because he was selfish? Because he didn't want to be alone anymore? Because he met the love of his life in a hometown where there was a child eating clown that made them forget about each other when they moved away? But, he decided to be selfish because fuck it, they're dead one way or another. He looked Eddie in the eyes, feeling drawn to the deep brown abyss that welcomed him. He thought of trees and nature and warm brownies and hammocks and grey water and Eddie. All in one, all swirling together, all mixing, and he kissed Eddie, forcing the memory away from him and into Eddie. 

Shock hit Eddie first, then he felt the memory come into him. They were sitting in the hammock together, Eddie sitting in Richie's space and bugging Rich for attention. He remembered seeing R+E carved into the wood of the kissing bridge, the E so faint he almost missed it, and praying to God that he would be brave enough to write the same thing another day. He remembered being on the Ferris Wheel in eighth grade with the Trashmouth and them almost tipping the cart. He remembered when Richie would stay over or vice versa and they slept in the same bed always. They kissed too. One night in ninth grade when Eddie had been so frustrated by his mother that he grabbed Richie and kissed him, not knowing why he did then either. But, fuck, it just felt right. He remembered they'd sneak around the barrens and stay late at the hideout Ben built. He remembered when Richie started working at the arcade and they'd lock the back room just for them to use. He remembered losing his virginity in the back of a truck when they drove off into the night just to get away for a few hours. He remembered they got cereal box rings for each other and promised to marry each other. 

As he remembered, he crawled onto Richie's lap and pulled at their clothes. Richie held him up and moved them so they were laying back on the bed. 

It was a crescendo of feelings. He remembered the physical feelings as they came back. He remembered being scared out of his mind and shaking every moment up to kissing Rich, then everything went calm when he did. He remembered waking up every Saturday morning with Richie wrapped around him and how safe he felt in his arms. He remembered the smells of the fair and the smell Richie had when he borrowed his dad's cologne before he'd picked Eddie up. He remembered the smell of the pharmacy when they argued about which allergy medicines actually worked and which ones were gazebos. He remembered the feeling of Richie's hand on his leg as he balanced the hammock they shared. He remembered the churn in his stomach when Richie said 'I love you'. He felt the vibration of the speakers in Richie's car and he remembered the pain mixed with the complete ecstasy in his body when he fucked Richie. He wanted to scream now as he felt that same feeling all over again. His body ached again to love someone like he had. 

Richie was inside Eddie before either could realize what their bodies were doing. They had let their minds lose control. Fuck Myra, fuck Pennywise, Eddie had Richie and nothing could take that away. Eddie bounced in Richie's lap losing himself in the sounds around him: the quiet moans from his own throat that he let slip out, Richie's little grunts as he pushed himself further into Eddie, the groan of the bed beneath them. The memories and the present collided like a meteors and rained down over the Earth setting ablaze to everything he'd thought he knew. 

When it was over, he was sitting up against the headboard with Richie in his lap, he was stroking his hair and remembering all the times he'd done so before. How could he forget the feeling of loving someone so dearly that you just lay with each other? He couldn't think about Myra, though he did try. He tried to feel guilty, tried being sorry, tried scripting his apology. All of it was for naught. Every time he started to try thinking about her, he would be looking at Richie and he would forget her. He'd forget her like he'd forgotten Derry all these years. He pushed Richie off his lap and scooted down to be face to face with him. Once he settled, Richie kissed his nose. They both smiled, gentle little curves forming on their lips. 

"When did you start remembering?" Eddie asked. 

Before he spoke, Richie let out a breath. "When we went to the hideout earlier I remembered some things. Then I went onto the kissing bridge and it just..." He looked at the ceiling. "I wasn't going to tell you but I didn't know what to do with what I know now." He admitted, seeing if Eddie might be mad or trying to leave. 

"Did you write R+E?" Eddie asked. Richie nodded. "I always looked at that and wanted it to be us. I just remembered." he laughed. 

"Well, Eddie Spaghetti, that was in fact me." Richie boasted. 

"Why didn't you ever tell me? That was there since-God it had to be before we got together."

"I wrote it the summer It came to town. I was at the arcade and there was this other guy playing games with me. It was Bowers' cousin. And Bowers came in and called me a fairy or whatever and I realized that I was trying to replace you with that guy. Then I figured out why. I just needed to get it out. I figured you and I would always be together somehow." Richie admitted like he'd been holding smoke in his lungs for years. It came out rasped and pained. 

"I was always wishing it was us, Rich." Eddie reminded him and cupped Richie's face in his hands. Richie held onto his wrists and let Eddie kiss him so gently he barely felt it. "What are we going to do when we leave?" Eddie asked. 

"We can live wherever you want. I don't care. I just want it to be us." Richie said optimistically. He knew the odds were slim, but damn he wished they weren't. 

"What if one of us doesn't make it?" Eddie asked, remembering how he'd run from the leper earlier in the pharmacy. 

"It better take both of us then." Richie answered and kissed Eddie's cheek. "Let's go clean up. I think they'll make us do something later." Richie said and rolled out of the bed. "We can worry about the future when we get there." He said and offered his hand to Eddie.


End file.
